Way to go - Ty - you are amazing.
Thanks for letting us know the details.
Mike/The Corvair a holic
Sent from my iPhone
>
> I have been waiting to make sure Kaitlin and Paul and Theodore the dog made it OK before posting an update, hope this post doesn't jinx them! They
> left Oklahoma City Tuesday night and made it to Memphis. I spoke to them today and they are well into Mississippi and hope to make their Florida
> destination for the holidays.
>
> When I got to them on Sunday night, Kaitlin's coach ran terrible. It was the worst running thing I've heard. Mac had been helping them diagnose the
> ignition and so we decided the first step was to set the timing and confirm plug wire hookups. We also cut the zip tie holding all wires together to
> eliminate the possibility of the 5-7 crossfire. We pulled the #1 plug to confirm that TDC matched our harmonic balancer timing mark. Thanks to Dick
> Paterson teaching me all this over the phone when I was troubleshooting my coach this summer.
>
> Once we trusted the timing we tried to drive the coach the 16 miles to my shop but there was just no way. It was gutless and terribly loud. They
> overnighted at a gas station Sunday night and Monday we had the truck towed to my shop. Over the summer I had met with my tow operator so that he was
> familiar with the right truck and hoist he would need to move our GMCs safely. Kaitlyn and Paul and Theodore the dog had to endure a few off-color tow
> operator jokes on the ride in but he only charged them $165 for the 8-mile run, which seemed fine considering he did it with the right equipment.
>
> We dug into the coach Monday night while Mac and his wife provided moral support. I wanted to set a baseline for the engine so we pulled the plugs and
> ran a compression test and leak-down test and recorded for her log book. We checked the plug wires and looked over all the spark plugs, recording the
> condition of each, gapping them, and numbering all of them to return to the same cylinders. It was immediately obvious that there were a couple of bad
> plugs in the mix which would have put us down two cylinders.
>
> I was suspicious of the exhaust gaskets contributing to the noise of the engine, so we decided to pull the manifolds and here's what we found first
> of all the exhaust gaskets were blown out on the topside, then we found that the donut gaskets were bad as well, but the big surprise was when we
> unhooked both sides of the exhaust pipes from the manifolds. The entire Y assembly with the flowmasters on it banged onto the ground. We got under the
> coach and realized that there were no muffler or pipe hangers reinstalled when Kaitlin had the flowmasters put on her coach recently. The result was
> that the entire assembly forward of the fuel tanks was hanging from the back of the manifolds. This, combined with loose bolts on the manifolds,
> compromised all of the exhaust gaskets on the engine. We knew this had to be fixed in order to listen to the engine closely enough to diagnose further
> issues.
>
> I wanted to install Jim K's Remflex gaskets or Dave Linzi's copper ones, but I knew that we could acquire Fel-Pro's on Monday night so we decided to
> proceed in that direction after visually inspecting the manifolds for cracks or warping. Tuesday we were able to pick up a couple of donuts and put
> them in, then we jacked the exhaust system up and temporarily anchored it long enough to get the coach on my four post lift where we raised it and
> secured the exhaust pipes back in place. New plugs, torqued everything down, and I wish I could describe the look on Kaitlin's face when she fired up
> her coach to hear the engine running normally. This, after she spent the entire weekend worrying that her nice Dave M.-built 455 was gonna have to
> come out. She got out for the cost of a tow and some exhaust gaskets. Couldn't ask for a better outcome over Thanksgiving.
>
> Kaitlin is going to check the plugs and the torque on the manifold bolts daily right now and she will take the coach to a muffler shop for long-term
> exhaust pipe hangers and probably install locking retainers for the exhaust bolts. She is very mechanically inclined and she understands and is
> willing to learn what makes these coaches tick. We need to get her out to GMCMI Tucson this spring. She's one of the young, technically minded owners
> that our community needs more of. It was a good team effort by everyone giving Kaitlin advice over the phone and some good, actually great, luck on
> our part. Kaitlin and Paul took me to dinner at my favorite restaurant Monday night so I made out pretty well also!
>
> Ty
> --
> Ty Hardiman, Norman, OK / Member FMCA-GMCMI-GMC Classics / August 1977 Kingsley TZE167V102390 / 26' / 403 / 3.55 / 16" Wheels / Quadrajet / HEI /
> Previous Owners: Basil LeBlanc, Dan Ramker / Original Owner: William Strahm, Loveland, CO
>
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